and we all end up alone
by Min Daae
Summary: Some people don't believe in self-isolation. Or, what Sam was up to before Detroit. Meanwhile, the world ends.


The world ended like a scarf unraveling.

He'd cut the first strings, and the rest just kind of…went. Slowly at first, and then faster, fraying a little more each day. If Sam hadn't known better, he might have just thought it was a bad year getting into a worse one.

It wasn't like a cataclysm. It was like a disintegration.

And in Sam's dreams, the devil, spreading his hands like he was helpless to stop it. _Sam. I could make the world new again. Cut away the infection. If you just…_

He'd last heard word of Dean in San Francisco, cutting through a nest of vampires like a scythe.

~.~

He ran into Ellen and Jo sometime in the middle of 2010, which was marked by a massive drought. There were forest fires sweeping through most of Colorado. People were blaming it on everything from the godlessness of secular America to climate change.

Sam'd been keeping his head down. He learned his lesson about hunters early on.

He had no idea how they find him, but however they managed it they barged in on him curled up sleeping restlessly in an abandoned house in West Virginia. He woke up to Ellen leaning over him. "Boy," she said, "You make yourself a hard one to find."

Sam just stared at her for a long moment, and then closed his eyes again. "Yeah," he said, tiredly, "That was kind of the idea." _Are you going to kill me _was on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it.

Ellen frowned at him like she was thinking of slapping him across the face and just barely deciding against it. "You and your brother are a regular pair. You'd think neither of you knew how to use a damn phone."

Sam pushed himself bolt upright, not sure if his tension was anticipation or something else. "You've talked to Dean?"

"Yeah," said Jo, who was examining one of the windows. "Couple weeks back in Wisconsin. You should've seen it. Mom chewed him out for about a half an hour when he said he didn't know where you were." She glanced over her shoulder at him. "There's not a salt line on this window."

Sam flushed. Tried not to picture Ellen yelling right in Dean's face, and because he was trying not to, couldn't help it. His chest hurt with something between yearning and a bizarre desire to laugh. "Yeah," he said. "Well. Not much bothers me. Did Dean say-"

"Something about Lucifer," Ellen interrupted, straightening up and going over to look at the window Jo had been examining. Sam had gotten out of the habit. It didn't really seem worth it. (Honestly, seemed almost counterproductive.) "It might've come up. Heard that story before."

"It's true," Sam said, heavily. He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "You really shouldn't…"

"You try to tell me what I should and shouldn't do, Sam Winchester," Ellen said, without even turning around, "And I'll put a round of buckshot in your ass. You may be a Winchester, and therefore as dumb as a post, but you're also near enough family. I'm not saying we're here to babysit. We're here to let you know that if you go three months without picking up a damn phone, that's coming out of your hide."

Sam blinked at her. Jo turned around and took one look at his face, then snickered. "No, see," she said smugly, "I told you he'd have a better surprised face than Dean."

"Joanna Beth," said Ellen, but she sounded amused. Then leveled a hard-eyed gaze on Sam. "We're staying here tonight," she said. "I'm going to get some salt for that window."

~.~

They stayed the night and left in the morning. Sam went east (away from Wisconsin), they went west. Two days out he got a message on his phone from Jo: _heard about a werewolf pack in South Carolina. Interested?_

He ran his thumbs over the keys, put in _no _and then _yes _and then _no _again. A few minutes later his phone buzzed again. _Meet in Greenville in four days. Expect you there._

Sam almost wanted to laugh. Almost.

But he headed for Greenville, South Carolina.

~.~

The first cases of the Croatoan virus started turning up in January of 2011. First just a few cases, an upturn in random violent crime that registered on the news. A few jokes about the Rage Virus.

And then it was everywhere at once and wasn't funny anymore.

The Harvelles met up with him in the Oklahoma panhandle. A rural area. The virus had started in the cities. They holed up in a barn and barred the doors, just in case.

"Nashville's gone," Jo said, her voice clipped. "We were just there. Some idiot set a fire trying to burn out the Croats. Everything was dry as tinder from the drought. Everything went up. What's left is overrun."

Sam swallowed and tried not to think about all those people, an entire city, scorched off the map. _It's the apocalypse, Sam. What did you think it would look like?_ He nodded, just a little. "Cells probably won't work much longer," He said, after a moment. "What are they…has there been any news?"

"The gas station down the road had a paper," Ellen said, voice and face grim. "It was about a week old, though. They were talking about a cure. Some facility in Florida working on a vaccine."

"Probably gone now," Sam said, bleakly. "If there was even anything they could do." He looked back and forth between them. "Either of you…Dean?"

Jo and Ellen glanced at each other. "Set up some kind of base camp in Kansas," Jo said after a moment. "Gathering people. Hunters, mostly, but...survivors, too." Sam swallowed, nodded.

"Yeah, sounds like…sounds good. Dean'd be good at that. At leading." He took a deep breath. "You know I can't…but that doesn't mean you shouldn't."

"If you keep trying to chase us away," Jo said, picking apart a piece of hay, "I'm going to start thinking you don't like me or something."

"That's not…" Sam trailed off helplessly. Ellen clapped him on the shoulder.

"You thought Winchesters were stubborn," she said, and half smiled at him. _God, _Sam thought. _You're so much more than I deserve. _He swatted the hand away, though, and forced out a smile.

"Winchesters _are _stubborn," he said. "Doesn't mean Harvelles aren't worse."

~.~

They didn't separate after that. With infrastructure starting to come down from lack of maintenance if not outright sabotage, it was anyone's guess how they were going to contact each other otherwise, and Sam didn't bother to object to the assumption that he was going with them.

Didn't seem to be much point.

The back roads were still mostly clear, so they could drive. And did, taking hunts they ran into along the way. Clearing out small groups of Croats. Offering the help they could to the confused survivors sitting hunched in darkened houses around cans of food, listening hopefully to short-wave radios.

The world kept ending, a little at a time. Jo's mouth took on new lines of tension. Ellen started to look her age in truth.

Sam noticed in a gas station mirror that he looked no different.

_You and me, Sam, _Lucifer said in his dreams. _We have forever. _

_~.~  
_

In Utah, November of 2011, Sam was shot and killed by a nervous farmer who took them for Croats.

It made sense, really. The gun had been aimed at Ellen first. He'd knocked her out of the way and taken the shot. A couple blurry, awful moments where Ellen was yelling furiously at him (he thought) and Jo was yelling furiously at someone else ("We're not Croats, you dumbass, put that gun the fuck away before I shoot _you_") and then he faded out.

He woke up on a couch that was sagging but almost comfortable. Rubbed a hand over his face, feeling bitterly tired. Sat up slowly, and found himself looking at Jo, who was staring at him white-faced and – ah, shit.

She looked like she'd maybe been crying. "Mom," she said, after a moment, and Ellen appeared a step behind her, expression pinched, stared at him blankly for a moment, and then crossed her arms and said, "I'll be damned."

Her eyes were a little red-rimmed too. Sam looked down.

"So," he said. "Uh."

Ellen took what sounded like a slightly shaky breath. "I ought to be used to you damn Winchesters by now. Just don't stay down." Then her eyes narrowed. "That why you saw fit to make a dumbass move like that, boy?"

"Um," Sam said. "…he was going to shoot you."

"There are other ways to fix that problem then getting in the _way, _you-" Ellen swore. "You try a stunt like that again and-"

"I knew I couldn't die," Sam said, in automatic protest, and Jo made a kind of choking noise.

"Oh," she said. "Cause that's really reassuring." The anger in Ellen's eyes had melted away, and she was looking at him with a kind of sympathy that hurt to see. Sam looked down.

"I hope you didn't kill the farmer," he said, finally. Ellen snorted after a bare moment of awkward silence.

"Jo was thinking about it," she said, and Sam heard, _we'll talk about that later _and really didn't ever want to have that conversation. Ellen rocked back on her heels and looked at him out of narrowed eyes. "It's Lucifer? That's why…" she said, after a moment, and Sam flinched.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I mean, I guess. Figures." Ellen's eyes narrowed a notch, and Sam added, hurriedly, "Cause he can't take any risks, I mean, I'm friggin' _important,_" and while Ellen's lips pressed together, she eventually just nodded.

"Well," she said, and then was dragging him off the couch and hugging him and Sam wobbled a little, taken off guard. "Whatever the reason, boy, I'm just glad you're not dead."

"Yeah," Jo said, after a moment, and then cleared her throat. "—yeah. Me too."

~.~

In March of 2012 they caught a sunny day in Southern California. "Oh," said Jo, "We're going to the beach." Ellen and Sam both looked at her incredulously, but Jo just shrugged and grinned, brighter than she had in months. "Why not? One day. Back me up here, Sam."

Sam held up his hands when Ellen looked at him. "I'm not going to get involved in this," he said, and Ellen's expression softened, peculiarly.

They went to the beach. It was soberingly empty. Jo rolled up her jeans and wiggled her toes into the sand. "I'm a beach babe," she said, sticking out her lower lip, and Sam had to laugh.

"A beach babe with a handgun," he said, and Jo made a face at him.

"What, you don't like a girl with a gun?" she said, and then turned to Ellen. "Mo-om. Sam's being mean."

It was pretending. Playing at normalcy. Looking at the smile turning up the corners of Ellen's mouth in spite of her effort to look stern, it was the sweetest thing Sam thought he'd ever seen.

~.~

They were driving up the coast of California, avoiding the major cities. Just north of Palo Alto, they saw someone on the side of the road, standing looking at their car with an expression of forlorn despair. Sam knew the feeling. When they ran out of gas this time, it wasn't likely they'd be able to get more.

Ellen stopped their car a safe distance away, rolled down the window. "Car trouble?" she said, casually, but Sam could see her reaching for her pistol.

"I don't know," the man said, sounding thoroughly miserable. "It was just-"

Someone knocked on the other window. Sam looked over to see another man, young with sandy hair, grin and wave and blink, eyes filling up with black.

"Demon!" Sam said, and everything happened very fast.

The man with "car trouble" wrenched the door off its hinges. Ellen swung her rifle around and blew half of his head off, followed by a stream of black smoke, but there were others, five, six, and Sam couldn't reach his fucking _gun _fast enough, didn't have anything that could kill a demon, didn't-

Jo was shouting an exorcism, but her voice was cut off suddenly, and Sam was on his feet (finally, too small cars, lost time) and lunging for the nearest demon with no idea what he was going to do.

Sandy-hair slammed him back against the car. "Hey," he said. "Cool your jets, kid. I've just got some _questions._"

Sam was about to snarl something generically defiant when a little twitch of sandy-hair's eyes brought his attention to Ellen and Jo. Each of them restrained with a knife at their throat pressing too close to skin. Jo's demon had a bloody nose and a leaking hole in its shoulder. Ellen's had what looked like clawmarks on its face. He swallowed hard.

"What kind of questions," he asked, carefully. "How do I know that you're going to let them go if I-"

"You don't," sandy-hair said, with a broad grin. "But if you keep your mouth shut, it's a sure thing, innit?" There was something in those eyes, even normal colored, that Sam didn't like. Something wild. Feral.

"What do you want," Sam asked, flatly. Sandy-hair grinned broader, all teeth.

"Lucifer," he said, simply. Sam felt a cold dread settle in his stomach.

"I don't have him hidden in the car, as you can probably see," Sam said, and the demon snarled. He caught a trickle of blood down Jo's throat as the knife pressed in.

"Don't get smart with me. I know you have a link. Get him here."

Sam swallowed hard. "I can't. I don't know how to-"

"Where is he," one of the other demons snarled, wild-eyed, taking a step toward Sam. "Call him. I want to see him. I want to see-" Sandy-hair held up an arresting hand, and the other stopped.

"What do you mean," he said, calmly, "You can't?"

"It doesn't work-" Sam started to say, and then sandy-hair made a barely perceptible motion of his hand and the demon holding Jo jammed the knife back through her throat. He was close enough to hear it grind against her spine and her blood sprayed on his shirt.

"_Jo!"_ Ellen's voice broke, and he could see her struggling wildly, kicking and biting and- the demon dropped Jo's body to the ground.

"Call him," said the demon again, taking a step closer, and Sam was going to rip his throat out with his teeth, drink his blood and kill all of them, all of-

Ellen. "There's a thing," he said, "There's – on my ribs. Means he can't find me."

A flash of rage, and then the demon raised a hand. "Well," he said. "Let's see if I can fix that." He clenched his fist.

Sam felt all his ribs splinter at once.

He dropped before he could even understand what had happened, just caught through his own scream the casual voice of the demon, "Kill the bitch." There was blood in the back of his throat. Sam thought he could taste the shreds of his lungs. "Ellen," he choked, "Ellen-"

There was one person he could call for help. "_Lucifer,_" he said, struggling to push himself up. And heard, distantly, the sound of wingbeats.

"What," that voice, smooth and rich with power, and so, so cold, "Is this?" Ellen. Jo. _God. _

Sam let it all go.

~.~

He woke up feeling unaccountably warm. Someone was stroking hair back from his forehead. _Oh, god. Please, let it have been a dream, let it have been – maybe I was sick, maybe-_

"Ellen," he said weakly, hopefully, though he already knew, truthfully, already knew.

A gentle sigh. He didn't open his eyes. "Oh, Sam," said Lucifer, softly, softly. "They're all dead. I killed them for you."

"Please," Sam said, leaving his eyes closed. "Please, I can't – I can't. I need them."

"I'm so sorry," Lucifer said. His lips pressed, warm, to Sam's forehead. "I can't bring them back, Sam. Not yet. Not until you understand."

"Understand what," Sam said, squeezing his eyes more tightly closed, as if he could make it stop if he just tried hard enough, if he just _wished _hard enough (what have your wishes ever done, Sam).

"That you don't need them," Lucifer said, softly. "That you don't need anyone but me. Say yes to me."

"No," Sam said, sobbed, trying to pull away, to crawl away, to get _away. _Thinking of Jo on the beach sticking her lower lip out, and Ellen's face when she was trying not to smile, and the friendly way they bickered when they were both tired and the way Ellen kissed Jo's forehead casually like she wasn't really thinking about doing it- "No," he said desperately. "No, no, I won't-"

"I'm sorry," Lucifer said, and touched his arm. "But you will. Because I love you, more than anything. More than anyone else ever can or has or will. You will understand that, before the end. I will see to it."

And he was gone, with the heavy sound of wings.

~.~

The world ended like picking off a scab.

Peeling it away a little at a time, and once it'd started to come up it wouldn't be left alone, and underneath was pink raw skin and astonishingly little blood.

The sun kept rising just the same.

Sam got up and kept going. He didn't know what else to do.


End file.
